John Singleton CopleyAmerican, 1738–1815The Copley Family
Can I see it?
Yes, on view now
Where is “The Copley Family” now? National Gallery of Art, Gallery 59 · West Building, Main Floor, Washington, D.C. Yes, on view now. Checked September 29, 2026.
Closed· opens tomorrow at 10:00 AM
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
The Copley Family is a 1777 oil on canvas portrait painting by the American artist John Singleton Copley. A group portrait, it features a self-portrait of the artist with his wife Susanna and children and his father-in-law Richard Clarke, an Loyalist merchant.
The Boston-born Copley settled in Britain shortly after the outbreak of the American War of Independence. He became known for his large modern history paintings such as The Death of Lord Chatham, The Death of Major Pierson and The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar.
The work was displayed at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition of 1777 at Pall Mall in London. Today the painting is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, having once belonged to the artist's son Lord Lyndhurst, a British lawyer and politician and one of the sitters in the painting.
Details
- Accession number
- 1961.7.1
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- National Gallery of Art
- Image: National Gallery of Art — Museum open access
In the life of John Singleton Copley
The whole life1753–1774 · Workplace
Boston
April 1774
A mob at Copley’s house looks for the Loyalist Watson
A mob comes to Copley’s house demanding Col. George Watson, a Loyalist mandamus counsellor who had gone elsewhere; the patriots threaten to have Copley’s blood if he ever again shelters such a villain. In a letter of 26 April he is appalled: had Watson stayed the night, as he had pressed him to, he would have had to give up a friend to the insult of a mob or have his house pulled down and perhaps his family murdered.
June 1774
Sails from Boston for London
Amid growing unrest on the eve of the War of Independence, and urged on by correspondents in England, Copley sails with many letters of introduction, leaving his mother, wife and children in Henry Pelham’s charge. He never returns to America.
July – August 1774
London: West, Reynolds and the Royal Academy
On 11 July Copley writes from London after an easy passage; among his first calls is on West, in whose friendship he finds the qualities of both an artist and a gentleman. He is introduced to Sir Joshua Reynolds and taken to the Royal Academy, where students are drawing from a nude model; he takes no sitters yet, though urged to.
2 September 1774
Paris: the start of the European tour
Copley records his arrival in Paris, the beginning of his tour of Europe, where he sees and painstakingly describes many paintings and sculptures. He travels toward Rome with the artist George Carter, who kept a detailed journal and set down every trifle that told against the American.
1774–1815 · Workplace
London
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